Puerto Rico mayor hits out at US pres­i­dent

The mayor of Puerto Rico’s storm-rav­aged cap­i­tal city has ac­cused the US gov­ern­ment of “killing us with in­ef­fi­ciency” in the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Maria – spark­ing a fu­ri­ous re­sponse from Donald Trump.

The tropical cy­clone wreaked havoc when it hit the Caribbean is­land last month, leav­ing wide­spread dam­age and killing at least 16 peo­ple.

Car­men Yulin Cruz, mayor of San Juan, im­plored the US pres­i­dent to “make sure some­body is in charge that is up to the task of sav­ing lives”.

But in a se­ries of tweets, Mr Trump said: “They want ev­ery­thing to be done for them when it should be a com­mu­nity ef­fort.”

He added: “Such poor lead­er­ship abil­ity by the Mayor of San Juan, and oth­ers in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their work­ers to help.”